Part 14 (1/2)

At the reference to witnesses, Mahony dug his pencil into the paper till the point snapped. So this was their little game! And should the bluff not work ...? He sat rigid, staring at the chipped fragment of lead, and did not look up throughout the concluding scene of the farce.

It was over; the judge had decided in his favour. He jumped to his feet, and his coat-sleeve swept the dust off the entire length of the ledge in front of him. But before he reached the foot of the stairs Grindle came flying down, to say that Oc.o.c.k wished to speak to him.

Very good, replied Mahony, he would call at the office in the course of the afternoon. But the clerk left the courthouse at his side. And suddenly the thought flashed through Mahony's mind: ”The fellow suspects me of trying to do a bolt--of wanting to make off without paying my bill!”

The leech-like fas.h.i.+on in which Grindle stuck to his heels was not to be misread. ”This is what they call nursing, I suppose--he's nursing ME now!” said Mahony to himself. At the same time he reckoned up, with some anxiety, the money he had in his pocket. Should it prove insufficient, who knew what further affronts were in store for him.

But Oc.o.c.k had recovered his oily sleekness.

”A close shave that, sir, a VE-RY close shave! With Warnock on the bench I thought we could manage to pull it off. Had it been Guppy now ... Still, all's well that ends well, as the poet says. And now for a trifling matter of business.”

”How much do I owe you?”

The bill--it was already drawn up--for ”solicitor's and client's costs”

came to twenty odd pounds. Mahony paid it, and stalked out of the office.

But this was still not all. Once again Grindle ran after him, and pinned him to the floor.

”I say, Mr. Mahony, a rare joke--gad, it's enough to make you burst your sides! That old thingumbob, the plaintiff, ye know, now what'n earth d'you think 'e's been an' done? Gets outer court like one o'clock--'e'd a sorter rabbit-fancyin' business in 'is backyard. Well, 'ome 'e trots an' slits the guts of every blamed bunny, an' chucks the b.l.o.o.d.y corpses inter the street. Oh lor! What do you say to that, eh?

Unfurnished in the upper storey, what? Heh, heh, heh!”

Chapter III

How truly ”home” the poor little gimcrack shanty had become to him, Mahony grasped only when he once more crossed its threshold and Polly's arms lay round his neck.

His search for Johnny Oc.o.c.k had detained him in Melbourne for over a week. Under the guidance of young Grindle he had scoured the city, not omitting even the dens of infamy in the Chinese quarter; and he did not know which to be more saddened by: the revolting sights he saw, or his guide's proud familiarity with every shade of vice. But nothing could be heard of the missing lad; and at the suggestion of Henry Oc.o.c.k he put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the ARGUS, offering a substantial reward for news of Johnny alive or dead.

While waiting to see what this would bring forth, he paid a visit to John Turnham. It had not been part of his scheme to trouble his new relatives on this occasion; he bore them a grudge for the way they had met Polly's overture. But he was at his wits' end how to kill time: chafing at the delay was his main employment, if he were not worrying over the thought of having to appear before old Oc.o.c.k without his son.

So, one midday he called at Turnham's place of business in Flinders Lane, and was affably received by John, who carried him off to lunch at the Melbourne Club. Turnham was a warm partisan of the diggers' cause.

He had addressed a ma.s.s meeting held in Melbourne, soon after the fight on the Eureka; and he now roundly condemned the government's policy of repression.

”I am, as you are aware, my dear Mahony, no sentimentalist. But these rioters of yours seem to me the very type of man the country needs.

Could we have a better bedrock on which to build than these fearless champions of liberty?”

He set an excellent meal before his brother-in-law, and himself ate and drank heartily, unfolding his very table-napkin with a kind of relish.

In lunching, he inquired the object of Mahony's journey to town. At the mention of Henry Oc.o.c.k's name he raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

”Ah, indeed! Then it is hardly necessary to ask the upshot.”

He pooh-poohed Mahony's intention of staying till the defaulting witness was found; disapproved, too, the offer of a reward. ”To be paid out of YOUR pocket, of course! No, my dear Mahony, set your mind at rest and return to your wife. Lads of that sort never come to grief--more's the pity! By the bye, how IS Polly, and how does she like life on the diggings?”

In this connection, Mahony tendered congratulations on the expected addition to Turnham's family. John embarked readily enough on the theme of his beautiful wife; but into his voice, as he talked, came a note of impatience or annoyance, which formed an odd contrast to his wonted self-possession. ”Yes... her third, and for some reason which I cannot fathom, it threatens to prove the most trying of any.” And here he went into medical detail on Mrs. Emma's state.

Mahony urged compliance with the whims of the mother-to-be, even should they seem extravagant. ”Believe me, at a time like this such moods and caprices have their use. Nature very well knows what she is about.”

”Nature? Bah! I am no great believer in nature,” gave back John, and emptied his gla.s.s of madeira. ”Nature exists to be coerced and improved.”

They parted; and Mahony went back to twirl his thumbs in the hotel coffee-room. He could not persuade himself to take Turnham's advice and leave Johnny to his fate. And the delay was nearly over. At dawn next morning Johnny was found lying in a pitiable condition at the door of the hotel. It took Mahony the best part of the day to rouse him; to make him understand he was not to be horsewhipped; to purchase a fresh suit of clothing for him: to get him, in short, halfway ready to travel the following day--a blear-eyed, weak-witted craven, who fell into a cold sweat at every b.u.mp of the coach. Not till they reached the end of the awful journey--even a Chinaman rose to impudence about Johnny's nerves, his foul breath, his cracked lips--did Mahony learn how the wretched boy had come by the money for his debauch. At the public-house where the coach drew up, old Oc.o.c.k stood grimly waiting, with a leather thong at his belt, and the news that his till had been broken open and robbed of its contents. With an involuntary recommendation to mercy, Mahony handed over the culprit and turned his steps home.